VacationSelector
Painted wooden houses under palms in Key West, Key West
Key WestPainted wooden houses under palms in Key West
Waterfront houses on Harbor Island in Newport Harbor, Newport Beach
Newport BeachWaterfront houses on Harbor Island in Newport Harbor

Photos: Key West by Dominik Gryzbon, Pexels License; Newport Beach by Don Ramey Logan, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped.

Key West or Newport Beach?

Our verdict in twelve categories, each scored against the same fixed benchmark cities, and the climate month by month, so you can choose for your trip.

Choose Key West for

  • getting around
  • nightlife
  • culture and sights

What lies behind each score is written up on Key West’s own page.

Choose Newport Beach for

  • day trips
  • families
  • shopping

What lies behind each score is written up on Newport Beach’s own page.

Scoreboard

Twelve categories on one fixed scale from 0 to 100. The shaded stretch is the gap between the two.

Beaches & swimming. Key West 60, Newport Beach 70: Newport Beach leads by 10 points.
Food & drink. Key West 45, Newport Beach 50: Newport Beach leads by 5 points.
Culture & sights. Key West 40, Newport Beach 20: Key West leads by 20 points.
Nightlife. Key West 62, Newport Beach 33: Key West leads by 29 points.
Nature & outdoors. Key West 62, Newport Beach 66: Newport Beach leads by 4 points.
Day trips. Key West 28, Newport Beach 70: Newport Beach leads by 42 points.
Good for families. Key West 40, Newport Beach 80: Newport Beach leads by 40 points.
Getting around. Key West 62, Newport Beach 20: Key West leads by 42 points.
Shopping & style. Key West 30, Newport Beach 62: Newport Beach leads by 32 points.
Affordability. Key West and Newport Beach are level on 15.
Live music & performing arts. Key West 38, Newport Beach 46: Newport Beach leads by 8 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Key West 40, Newport Beach 44: Newport Beach leads by 4 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Key West and Newport Beach.

Your match

Pick a travel style or drag the sliders, and both match scores follow your weighting.

Key West
44match

Wins on getting around and nightlife with your weighting.

Newport Beach
Best match
48match

Wins on day trips and families with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

Pick your month. The climate figures are measured averages, not a forecast.

Key West in July

32 °Cdaytime high
27 °Cnight-time low
84 mmrain in the month
30 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Newport Beach in July

26 °Cdaytime high
19 °Cnight-time low
1 mmrain in the month
20 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150JFMAMJJASOND
Key WestNewport Beach

Where the figures come from

Key West's temperatures are measured 69 km from the centre, at Key West Airport.

Key West has no rain gauge within 25 km of the centre, so its rainfall comes from a gridded climate dataset read at the city rather than from a gauge further away.

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Key West: 1991-2020 normals, Key West Airport (69.1 km from centre). Newport Beach: 1991-2020 (rainfall 1981-2010) normals, Santa Ana / Paularino (7.1 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureKey WestNewport Beach
CurrencyUS Dollar (USD)US Dollar (USD)
SocketsAB120 V, 60 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-5, UTC-4 in summerUTC-8, UTC-7 in summer
Emergency number911911
Elevation4 m3 m
Main airportKey West International Airport (EYW)2 km from centre24 non-stop destinationsJohn Wayne Orange County International Airport (SNA)7 km from centre53 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year11 days13 days

By the numbers

MeasureKey WestNewport Beach
City population26,44485,239
People per km²1,407622
Museums within 10 km74
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00
Swim season, months above 21 °C12 monthsNone

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Key West or Newport Beach somewhere new.

Browse every destination

Sources

Structured data from Wikidata (CC0). Weather data by Meteostat. Meteorological data provided by NOAA, DWD and others. Rainfall where no rain gauge is within 25 km is from the TerraClimate 1991-2020 climatology (Abatzoglou et al. 2018, Scientific Data), read at the city. Sea surface temperature from NOAA OISST v2.1, NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory. Airport data from OurAirports (public domain). Public holidays from Nager.Date (MIT). Exchange rates via Frankfurter, based on European Central Bank reference rates. Non-stop route lists from the "Airlines and destinations" tables on English Wikipedia airport articles, by Wikipedia contributors, reused under CC BY-SA 4.0. Currency from the ISO 4217 register maintained by SIX, cross-checked against country data from GeoNames (CC BY 4.0). Price level from World Bank open data (PPP conversion factor for private consumption and official exchange rate), CC BY 4.0. Time zones from GeoNames (CC BY 4.0); clock offsets computed from the IANA time zone database. Daylight hours computed from each destination's latitude using the NOAA solar position algorithm.

Category scores are our editorial verdict under rubric v3, each placed against the same fixed benchmark cities; the climate figures are measured. How the scores are set. Snapshot generated 2026-11-02. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.